David Gould
President
Resolution Media
3/8/10
Lesson #18 talks about the importance of owning as much shelf space as possible, whether that be on Google or at retail point-of-purchase. Do you agree? How do you think about this concept in the context of your clients?
I can’t imagine a scenario [on Google] where you wouldn’t want to have every listing available through maps, video, news, etc. At the end of the day, the goal is to have your digital content distributed as widely as possible. There are so many opportunities to have your content out there. You want to be in the customer’s face. [As far as the ad listings go,] the bottom line is you don’t pay unless people click.
So why aren’t more brands focused on doing it?
We’re starting to see it more and more. [But,] there’s a learning curve involved and resources required. To take advantage of all these opportunities, it takes a lot of management. You have shopping feeds, video, etc. Someone needs to create the content and coordinate with internal constituents and external agencies. Advertisers will [always] start with the [places they can get] the biggest bang for their buck and that’s standard text ads and basic SEO [for their Website].
The learning curve is that there are still marketers that don’t fully grasp the idea that digital is not a channel, it’s a platform. (I say something similar about analytics, by the way. Analytics is not a tool, it’s a discipline.) Marketers that handle different channels should be thinking about how digital impacts their channel and not that the digital person will take care of it.
There’s also an opportunity cost involved with the resources required to optimize various forms of content. Nothing in SEO is free. We always advise our clients to take into account the manpower required to execute, to create the content, and to coordinate all the different groups involved.
